


you're the wind, i'm the wave

by cloudydragon



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, EXTREMELY self-indulgent, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 01:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9297875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudydragon/pseuds/cloudydragon
Summary: Snapshots of a universe where people have wings.





	1. in retrospect

_Hinata Hajime._

  
In retrospect, it makes sense that such a unremarkable, boring person would have an equally dull pair of wings. Komaeda had thought they were beautiful when he first saw them. He'd loudly described them as such, much to their bearer's embarrassment: each wing clearly barred brown over white, in a shade that perfectly matches his hair, the undersides unmarred but for three dark flight feathers perched like sentinels over the creamy down.

Those wings had been special to Komaeda, once. After all, they'd been owned by a marvelous person, the only one out of all of the Super High School Levels who could bring himself to smile at Komaeda's worthless face and mean it. Now, knowing what he knew, the only thing Komaeda wanted from Hinata Hajime was to pull all of his feathers out and watch his (disgusting, perfect, _normal_ ) face crinkle in pain.

It would be so easy: thanks to Ibuki Mioda, Hinata's door didn’t even have a lock. Komaeda could slip in with a knife and a coil of rope tucked under his arm and no one would ever know Hinata was in danger till the morning came.

(Another thing: Hinata would open his door for Komaeda, if he knocked. He’d done it before. Komaeda imagines Hinata’s searching frown, glancing at him with no more irritation than usual until Komaeda locks the door behind him and knocks him bodily to the ground.

He pictures Hinata trembling, tied, his face pale with shock and pain. Still resisting, refusing to be subdued even as Komaeda pins his dirty, bloody wings behind him, his feathers torn loose and fluttering around them from the fight: glaring at him with sharp yellow eyes, looking darkly up at Komaeda as he forces Hinata's wrist to the floor and readies the knife with the other.

"I always knew you were dangerous.” Hinata's traitorous mouth whispers, “I can’t believe I ever trusted you,” and Komaeda snarls and plunges his knife down - )

No. Komaeda wouldn’t be able to control himself, if Hinata said that. It's a mark of how worthless he is, how little self-control he has left. Komaeda presses a too-cold hand to his cheek, imagines a time (a place) when Hinata’s warm fingers traced it instead, and wishes briefly, sacrilegiously, that his luck had never led him to encounter Hinata Hajime.


	2. here when you need me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Komaeda is sick. Hinata tries to make him comfortable.

Komaeda’s wings are huge and broad, adorned handsomely with pure white feathers just a few shades off from Hinata’s cream. Hinata’s been trying not to think about them, but thoughts of Komaeda have been flooding his head recently: it’s even worse now that he’s lounging in the hospital lobby with nothing else to do except halfheartedly preen his greasy wings.

Komaeda’s wings really do suit him. He seems to have a knack for choosing things that suit him, even up to his frankly ugly coat. Or maybe it's just good genetics - he’s tall and lanky and long-feathered to match, and his features are all conventionally handsome. Even his face, which is pale as china on a sunny day, has its own charm. Hinata has never seen the appeal of male models, but Komaeda’s pretty in ways that makes even him take notice.

He's not pretty when he's splayed across the hospital bed. Hinata supposes he can say that of all of the sick people, really, but in Komaeda the change is especially dramatic. It's easy to believe that he's sick (the words _stage three frontotemporal dementia_ won't stop ringing in his ears) but with his skin bleached to translucence and his wings floppy and trailing feathers on his bed, he looks like he's… insane, or dying, or something.

Kuzuyruu apparently thought the same thing, because he walked into the room, took one look at Komaeda, swore, and walked back out the door. Hinata can’t blame him for that: maybe he’s the crazy one for lingering in Komaeda’s room longer than he needed to, long enough that Komaeda had to tell him to leave.

Monokuma had said Komaeda had the liar’s disease, hadn’t he? Part of Hinata wonders how that makes him different from his normal self. He’d been ranting incoherently up until he'd collapsed, through breathing so harsh it sounded like he was coughing out the words.

_“Despair! It’s so amazing! You should all get it, too!”_ It didn’t sound like anything a normal Komaeda would say, although Hinata isn't really the best judge.

Wait. If **everything** he said was a lie, then…

_"Spending time with you is just... sheer torture."  
“Yeah, hurry up and get out. I don’t even want to see your face.”_

Had Komaeda actually been asking him to stay?

Hinata suddenly feels like a terrible person. Komaeda is sick and delirious, and as far as Hinata knows, no one’s actually bothered to explain anything to him. Maybe he actually thinks he's dying. And Hinata left him in his room alone, without figuring out what he was really saying.

Energised by this sudden realisation, Hinata stands up and rouses - it's not like anyone's here to see him do it - before folding his wings and slipping through the door to the patient rooms. It feels imperative, somehow, to apologise to Komaeda. He’s probably sleeping by now, but it’s worth a shot.

He isn’t. In fact, Komaeda is somehow _more_ awake than before. Didn’t Tsumiki say that she’d sedate him after he left? Hinata stands in the doorway, watching mutely as Komaeda’s pale green eyes dart everywhere except at his face. After a few seconds he clenches his fists in his blankets and spits -

“I told you to leave me alone! Why did you come back? I don't want to see you here ever again!"

Despite the harsh words, Komaeda just stares at Hinata as he approaches the bed. He's trembling - from illness or anticipation or fear, Hinata can't tell. Komaeda looks even worse up close, sweat dripping down from his scrunched-up forehead and his cheeks flushed brilliant red with fever, and suddenly Hinata understands what he wants to do.

“It’s okay.” Hinata says. “I get what you’re saying. I won’t leave.”

Komaeda’s eyes widen until they’re more whites than pupils as Hinata lays a palm on his head, smoothing down his sweaty hair. Hinata remembers, suddenly, being very young, and someone (his mother?) preening him when he was sick and irritable. The repetitive motions and the coolness of the cloth on his forehead had eventually lulled him to sleep.

The memory nearly breaks him out of the trance - is he finally starting to remember who he is? - but Komaeda shifts restlessly as Hinata takes his wing, which brings him back to the present.

"No, don't, I don't want you to," he says, but it's just a whisper of a protest deep down in his throat as Hinata scoops a handful of oil from his U-gland and spreads it generously over the flat of Komaeda's first flight feather.

The automatic gestures and the occasional "Don't touch me like that, it feels awful." isn't quite enough to distract Hinata from how awkward this situation is. He focuses instead on the difference between preening Komaeda's wings and doing it to himself, accidentally discovering that Komaeda relaxes all at once instead of slowly when he finds himself with a heavy lapful of wing. It's worth it to see them clean and shiny again, with all the loose feathers carded out and swept to the side.

"I'm done." he says finally, letting out a huge breath. Komaeda doesn't answer him, and Hinata turns around to see him propped into his right wing, slumped forward onto his chest. Hinata wonders briefly if he's fallen asleep like that, but then Komaeda lifts his head and meets his gaze, his eyes red and glossy.

"I hate you." Komaeda says, voice shaky and wobbling, and Hinata mutters a gentle "Sure you do" as he helps him lie down on the bed. He tries not to feel too parental as he fetches fresh blankets and tucks them around Komaeda's bony shoulders, minding his freshly-preened wings.

"If you're done, go." says Komaeda, but Hinata shakes his head.

"I'll stay until you fall asleep." he says, and Komaeda sighs, though he doesn't sound too put out. "You're really incorrigible, Hinata-kun."

Hinata smiles. A sulky, sleepy Komaeda, he's realising, is much better than a distressed one. "Komaeda, I'll stay. I promise."

"I don't believe you." Komaeda breathes, and in a few seconds he's snoring with his head tipped back onto the pillows. Hinata watches him, inexplicably comforted by the ragged noise of his breathing, before he realises that Komaeda is still holding his hand.

"I don't want you dead." Hinata tells him quietly. It hangs in the air between them, solemn as a confession. Hinata still isn't sure why he should care about what happens to Komaeda, but he's slowly beginning to realise that not knowing doesn't stop him from _caring_.

The little frown of pain between Komaeda's eyebrows is gone. His sleeping face does not judge him.

Hinata doesn't let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Social grooming indicates a complete absence of hostility between two individuals. In both birds and sub-human primates, the preening invitation posture can be used as an appeasement gesture in the face of an aggressive onslaught." 
> 
> At the time of writing, Hinata has the wings of a short-eared owl, while Komaeda's are of a whooper swan.


End file.
